The WWF hit us with another edition of WWF Smackdown! this past Thursday, and surprisingly, it was a great show with a little something different this time, rather than the usual Mick Foley promo to start the show and those damn annoying tag team main events (ex. Rock & Jericho vs. HHH & Benoit). Two major happenings coming out of the show are of course the first obvious, it seems that the once happy "marriage" between Triple H and Stephanie McMahon may be crumbling, as Stephanie caught the Game "cheating" with Trish Stratus and went into a senseless rage. We can only imagine what will come out of this angle, and I'll definitely be tuning into Raw to see more of this one.
Staying on the subject of the Triple H/Stephanie "split," on this past Thursday's Smackdown!, we saw Triple H abruptly leave the show in his limousine in an of course, angry mood. With Triple H's recent sciatic nerve injury, rumors have been flying that the Game might take some time off, although that is simply a possibility. Triple H will see a doctor sometime before Monday's Raw to determine the extent of his injury and whether or not he'll be able to compete on Monday. I sure hope so.
Another major happening coming out of Smackdown was the complete 180 heel turn of the Godfather, turning into the "Good Father." Personally, I like this change for more than a few reasons. I was honestly getting sick and tired of seeing Godfather come out and say the same exact quotes every single time, not to mention that he isn't really one of my favorites when it comes to wrestling. The Good Father angle should provide for some good TV.
WWF Smackdown! scored an overnight rating of 5.7, which is fairly decent. No final rating is available at this time, but I'm estimating it'll be around 4.5 or so.
Triple H's birthday was this past Thursday, I believe, so a very happy birthday wish goes out to the Game. Scott Steiner's birthday is today. Happy b-day Big Poppa Pump.
The WWF will bring back "WWF Radio" on August 26, the night before the WWF's upcoming PPV, WWF SummerSlam. The show will be hosted by Michael Cole, Triple H, and Stephanie McMahon-Helmsley and will air on the Westwood One radio station from 8-10PM that night.
UPN will undergo a name and logo change on January 1st, 2001, according to a recent article in Variety. UPN's new name is expected to be "The Paramount Network." To read more about the name change, click HERE.
Chyna will be the next WWF superstar with her own comic book, according to WWF.com. The comic book is set for an August 5th release.
Chyna will be filming an upcoming commercial for Stacker II "The World's Strongest Fat Burner" this Thursday in NYC, according to Jim Ross.
TSN's Off the Record guest booker Neil Bennett sent this along... Just a note to let your readers know that Lance Storm will be appearing on Off the Record on TSN (Canada) on August 10th 6:00 pm et.
An episode of the Maury Povich show, which features ECW's New Jack recently re-aired. Thanks to Coleman for sending the following, as well as Kurt Russell and VkMBsB83 for also sending reports: "In Philadelphia, a local WB station airs 2 Maury Povich shows a day. 9am and 2pm. Today on the 9am Maury show the title was 'My Wild Teen Daughter has a Secret.' The show was about Teen Girls who smoke, do drugs, and have sex. Well at the end of this kind of show, Maury usually brings out Boot Camp officers and send the kids to boot camp. Well today Maury brought out none other that ECW's New Jack. New Jack was brought in to talk some sense to the kids and scare the hell out of them. New Jack and 2 other former Druggies took these teen girls to a jail where they stayed the night and walked them though the streets of New York. New Jack was loud, cursing, and hardcore. It was a entertaining show."
Staying on the subject of wrestler TV appearances, VkMBsB83 sent this along:"Al Snow was on a show called "Channel Surfing With Lisa", it's a show that talks about what pay-per-views are coming up (I think it's only shown here in Chicago). Al just made jokes the whole show, which were all pretty funny ("life's too short and so is Tazz"). There was also a short interview with Midion, he just talked about how Chicago fans are great and how he enjoys working with The Acolytes. There was also an Al Snow trivia contest which they said was hard but was easy (what was the name of his deer hear--Pierre). Also, the host asked to come down with Al the next time the WWF was in Chicago and he suggested she be one of The Godfather's hos (guess that's out now) but she didn't like that so he said he would talk to Vince about having her do something (wow, big ratings for that). She also gave Al some hockey stuff and that was about it. It was a pretty funny show with Al making fun of people like Tazz, Mideon (or Midiot as Al called him), Steve Blackman, Hulk Hogan and others."
Ending the news portion of this report on a sad note, legendary wrestling announcer Gordon Solie lost his battle with cancer Thursday evening. Several claim that he was undoubtedly the greatest wrestling announcer in the history of the sport. Our deepest sympathies and condolences go out to Gordon Solie's family and friends during this difficult time.
Corey Silvia is currently asking readers to send along their favorite finisher in professional wrestling, as part of a very interesting poll/survey. You can send him your e-mails at Corey@tpww.net. Corey is also back with another great edition of Jerichoholics Anonymous, where he looks at Fully Loaded, WWF Smackdown! and WCW Thunder pros and cons, and more.
Big Ry wrote another great column this week, focusing on four wrestlers he would like to see jump ship to each of the big three wrestling promotions. It's a very interesting read as always. You can check out his column, The People's Column, at the preceding link.
Ending on a personal note, I just recently ordered a new Pentium III 800MHz computer from Dell. If anyone's looking for a GREAT computer, definitely choose Dell. Also, here's yet another movie recommendation: I finally saw "American Beauty" on PPV the other day, and it was simply amazing. If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend you either rent it or order it on PPV. Great movie. One of the best, if not the best, I've ever seen. Well, now that I've rambled about a bunch of things that have absolutely nothing to do with wrestling, I'm going to wrap this one up. So long.
Triple A
TripleA99@aol.com